Professor Illes is one of my favorite professors in the Geography department! She is passionate about teaching and the material, and I love her sense of humor, which is sometimes dark. Not a class for those who are sensitive, because she has strong opinions about certain topics (although she is happy to discuss opposing opinions). Attendance is not mandatory but recommended. She does not post lectures online. If you go to class and take notes of everything on the slides and the videos she shows, you will do fine. You have weekly assignments which is a one-page single spaced response paper, and they are basically easy points for the class. There is one paper about 6 pages single spaced long about an invasive species in California that you choose. It is very easy to do because you follow a certain format, and not that time consuming like you might think. Just show up to class and be engaged with the lecture and you will be a-okay. Professor Illes is funny and the class is not boring at all. The tests are a mixture of multiple choice, short answer, and a couple essays (no minimum length for those). They can be hard, so study up on the notes and make sure you know every detail mentioned on the slides and what she's said in lecture.

Professor Illes is hands down one of the coolest professors in the Geography department. She is funny and extremely passionate about this class, considering that she has done a lot of field work in Africa. For summer, there are weekly assignments which are a one page, single-spaced response paper to readings she posts (easy points). There are two field trips, one to a small zoo (Wildlife Learning Center), and a large zoo of your choice. The tests are very easy if you go to class and take good notes on the slides and things she says. I would take this class again. The topic is very depressing though, so be prepared.

I took this my first quarter at UCLA and I thought it was pretty easy. The lectures are very surface level and it was about animals and the environment, the class is about memorizing basically. The lab section was an absolute joke though, learned nothing, but easy points. I feel like I had somewhat of a unique experience though since my TA left halfway through the quarter so she lightened up on the lab assignments. So it was easy, but not the easiest. We had a final presentation on an extinct animal and a multiple choice final and midterm. Pay attention to the little reviews that she does during class before the tests, she basically gives you all the answers then. Be sure to pay attention in class and take notes and you will do well!! We also talked about current events in the beginning of every class which was interesting.

Yall do not take a class with this professor. I actually took GEOG 146 (originally with Juan Herrera), however, Illes took over the class a couple of days before the start of the quarter. She completely changed the content of the class and made lectures asynchronous. I've taken another class with this professor--so have a few of my friends--and she usually makes her classes asynchronous (out of laziness). Her workload is a lot and offers no help or sympathy. On the first day of class, she made it known that this class would be challenging as most students taking this course were seniors. She is not helpful if you have questions over email and gets offended that you even had questions to ask. During pivotal moments through the quarter (the attack on the Palestinian encampment), she made it known that the midterm scores that week were unexpectedly low but she didn't care. Her tests are weirdly hard and challenging as she takes small details in each lecture to put in the exams. During week 7, she randomly let us know that we'd have a final even though she mentioned on the first day of class that there would most likely not be one. This class was originally meant to be fun and interesting but because she hates joy, she wanted to ruin it for everyone.

Prof Illes was funny and engaging. The class was very accommodating for remote learning as it was asynchronous, minus weekly quizzes on the lecture material. There were three 3-page papers we had to write about movies in different eras of LA history. The final and midterms were solely based off lecture, multiple choice with one or two short essays and were open note. Overall the class was super interesting and made so much sense as someone who has always lived in Metro LA. This class has forever changed my view of LA and it's history. Thank you!

Tbh I originally signed up for the course because I had a bad enrollment time but I ended up loving the class. The lectures were super engaging and I loved professor Illes short stories and personal anecdotes. The field labs were super fun and I enjoyed getting to look around Sage hill and the UCLA garden. The labs are graded the harshest out of any of the class material. My tip is to start them before class if you can, that way the material is more manageable during lab. The discussions overall are chill though. My TA was nice and knowledgable but didn't really understand personal space which as a woman (or really anyone) is kind of frustrating. Some things to be cautious about. The lectures ARE NOT recorded. If you don't go to class or have a very kind peer who records the lectures for you, you will not be able to obtain the material. There is no textbook for the class which is nice in terms of both having outside material to go over. There is also no actual homework which is a plus. The exams are pretty simple, mainly multiple choice and matching. For reference I studied for about an hour and got a 100% on the midterm. The final project was fun to complete and although I disliked it at the time I'm glad the professor had us turn in portions of it throughout the quarter since it made the end presentation SO much easier to complete. I'd recommend this class to anyone since an A is easily obtainable so long as you go to lecture, complete the labs, and put effort into the final project. Plus, you'll come out of the course with tons of fun animal facts :)

While Dr. Illes was generally an engaging lecturer and the content she covered was interesting, her exams and assignments unnecessarily, and excessively abstract and vague. She is also very unresponsive through email, thus you may have to heavily rely on the TA.

For the final exam, there was not a single person that received >89%, and no, she did not curve the final grade...

This is the WORST professor I have ever taken at UCLA. I am at a loss for words of how bad she is. If I have one piece of advice for anyone reading this, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS PROFESSOR. All of my friends cruised by this class with literally any professor with flying colors. I expected the same, but boy was I wrong.

The class seems deceptively easy because the lectures are relatively straightforward and easy to grasp. It seems like pure memorization. The labs were practically a joke, having absolutely nothing to do with the course material. But still really easy and you get 100% for just completing it. Then the midterm comes around, and any nitty gritty question is asked. I got a C+ on the midterm which was 2% above the average for my TA section. I thought it must be a joke or curved, but the TA announced there would be no curve. The entire class was furious. The professor said she refused to make a study guide (I believe due to laziness) and is extremely stubborn and unresponsive to student needs.

The TA then said the final should be much easier and that the professor was listening to our feedback. She even made us a study guide, which really wasn't much of a study guide and rather any broad topic that she has ever covered, and it honestly did not help at all. The final was just as hard as the midterm, with the class average being in the low B's. For a notoriously easy GE, this is ridiculous. This professor is a mean and rude lady who does not care about her students. WORST PROFESSOR EVER!!

the exams in this class are hard. however all the lectures are recordings. my ta was really nice and the labs themselves are easy. you just need to study hard for the exams.

Overall pretty easy GE class, felt like a high school class tbh. Lab participation is mandatory, but It's just group work that you'll always get 100% in as long as you do it. The class itself is asynchronous, which was pretty nice. All you had to do each week was watch 4-5 25-50 min lectures and create 3 questions with answers for each lecture.

The structure of the class is good and manageable, the only thing I didn't really enjoy was the professor and how she lectured and created her midterm/final. Illesburg was lowkey annoying in her lectures because it felt like all she did was rant in the recordings, but its tolerable if you skip past her rants. The midterm wasn't that bad, I got around an 87% even though she changed her test structure from 90 MCQ to 85 MCQ and 5 short answer questions. She also changed the structure of the final to be around 40 MCQ and 10 short answer questions because the class voted to have more free response, which didn't work in my favor because I forgot a lot of stuff and didn't have 4 options to choose from.

I didn't take this class that seriously, as I didn't watch the lectures thoroughly until the last couple of weeks leading up to the midterm and did fine thanks to my friend's notes combined with 2x speed. My advice to pass this class would be to work together with your lab group to make notes from recorded lectures and study it thoroughly before the exams.